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Friday, January 16, 2015

Character Creation

Image courtesy of Akeeris at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, let’s say you’ve had an awesome idea for a
story.You just have one problem: you
don’t really know who your characters are.

Everyone’s creative processes are different, and often,
different from project to project.Some
people come up with characters and then create a plot around them, while others
come up with a plot and then create characters for it.Some people have the idea hit them all at
once. Either way, you have to create your characters. Unless you’re writing fan
fiction, nobody will hand characters to you on a silver platter.You have to sculpt them from the ground up.

Now, there are hundreds if not thousands of resources and
recommendations regarding this topic, so my two bits really are just a spit in
the ocean.

The first thing to remember with character creation is
that your character is fluid.You can
change your character at any time.Say,
you’ve been writing your character as blonde but change your mind and want a
redhead instead.That’s fine.Change it.Need your character to be 25 instead of 21? Change it. Short instead of
tall? Plump instead of slender? Robert instead of Joseph? Even male instead of
female? Change it. You are not committed to the very first things you put down
on paper.

But…what about character consistency? You might hear
about this in literature classes, or maybe you’ve read about it.Yes, your characters absolutely have to be
consistent.This is not an option. This just
means they have to be consistent throughout the story, so if you do change
Stephen into Stephanie halfway through your book, you have to go back and
change every little thing to reflect that. (Unless your story is about a sex
change operation, but you know that’s not what I’m talking about.)

So, yes, the character must always be consistent
throughout the story, but the character him/her/itself is fluid. This is
because you are the puppet master of the microcosm you’ve created. You don’t
have to commit to anything. Simply remember that once you’ve made a change, the
change has to be applied across the whole
story – this is not an optional step.

The fact that character creation/design is fluid is an
important thing to note, because I can almost guarantee you that your character
will evolve and change from your initial plans as you write the story.You’ll need to make changes, you’ll want to
make changes, and this is totally okay. It is a pain, because when you change
your character you have to rework literally everything
you’ve written, but changing your character is, in many cases, necessary.

Additionally, please keep in mind that this reflects my
creative process and is by no means the only way to do this. There are some
things I feel more strongly about, but remember that none of this is written in
stone.

Having gotten that out of the way, you need to start
thinking about the fundamentals of your character.

Okay, Cassidy is
five-foot-four with blonde hair and green eyes and she has a few freckles on
her cheeks and she wears a size 8 US with a shoe size 10 US and she’s a little
uncomfortable about how big her feet are –

No! Cut that crap out! These are, for the most part,
SECONDARY considerations. This is not where you start when creating your
character.Well, I suppose you can, but
this is a little like picking out serving dishes before you’ve even decided
what to make for dinner.You might get a
little inspiration from the dishes, like we can get some inspiration for
Cassidy’s personality based on her self-consciousness over shoe size, but in
the long run, these attributes will be the most likely to change. Holding off
on them for now might be best. (But, if you really want to start here, go for
it.)

The first step in character creation, often times, is to
ask “In what time period and place is this story set?” This is a bit like
looking in the refrigerator to see what you have on hand before you start
making dinner.Why time period and
place? If your story is set in Africa in the 1800s but your character acts like
an American in the 2000s, you have a massive problem. Time period and region of
origin are a huge part of how people define themselves and choose their
behaviors.If you’re a girl, you will
have a significantly different understanding of your role as a woman in 2015
than a woman in 1915.It will also be
different based on whether you live in America or Papua New Guinea. (The same
goes for fantasy worlds.)

Once you have a setting figured out, you need to decide
on your character’s personality attributes. You may need to float around a bit
in the process here, since if the character has a chronic illness, this will
most likely affect his/her personality. So, this isn’t a hard and fast
step.None of these steps really are, as
your character is totally fluid.But
these steps can help you stay on track.

So, to establish personality attributes, first establish
a baseline for your character.This is
your character’s wake-up-on-an-average-day behavior.Are they diligent? Lazy? Optimistic? Morose? For
an idea of what this might look like, try to imagine first how you would
describe your average behavior, personality, moods, thought processes,
etc.Now, come up with descriptions that
fit your character.Keep in mind that if
you are writing this down, a good trick is to use a pen, not a pencil. Strike
out the things you change instead of erasing them. You never know – you might
want to back-track.

Once baseline is established, explore your character’s
extremes. How does your character behave when extremely elated? How do they
behave under extreme duress?All of
these behaviors need to have some root in your character’s baseline. A very
brave person will act differently under duress than a coward does. A lot of
times, I like to establish extremes first, because that helps me choose their
baseline behavior accordingly. (Not hard and fast steps, remember?)

Now, you may pick a name for your character.

Wait…what? The name isn’t first???

Well, you can pick
the name first, but keep in mind that names are a reflection of setting. A girl
from the fantasy world of G’tharlubul probably won’t be named Betty.A guy from 18th century Japan probably
won’t be named Robert. An average white dude in 16th century England
most likely won’t be named Tanaka. Conversely, in 21st century
America, just about any name works, up to and including G’tharlubul, depending
on how out-there the child’s parents are. (If your name is G’tharlubul,
understand that I mean you no offense. Also: your parents named you G’tharlubul??????!!!!!!
What’s your last name, Cthuluhu?)

Watch.Now some
person actually named G’tharlubul is going to leave me hate mail.

Ahem. Back on track.

Furthermore, names can often be symbolic. They don’t have
to be, and they aren’t always, but they add a little something extra when they
are. You can go with an ironic twist, like somebody who was born during winter
being named ‘Summer,’ or you can go with something a little deeper. A woman who
is trapped in servitude her whole life might be named Jenny.At first brush, this might not mean anything
to you, and if you look at what the name Jennifer means, it means ‘fair one.’
But, just like a female deer is called a doe, a female mule is called a jenny. So, it’s subtle, but it’s a nice touch.

Once all of this is done, decide on the physical
attributes of your character.Keep in
mind that certain physical attributes can affect personality, but a short guy
doesn’t necessarily have to be insecure about it. Also, keep in mind that you
probably won’t every actually tell people how tall your character is unless it’s relevant to the plot. However,
you need to know so that you can write your character accurately.

Character creation, at least as far I’m concerned, isn’t
a tidy step-by-step process.They make
massive character checklists that you can download, and I’m sure that for some
people, these are awesome tools. For me, character creation is a big page of
random notes with lots of stuff crossed out, and then I finally emerge
triumphant with a character that I am satisfied with.

If you want to learn more about good character creation,
please check out Character and Viewpoint
by Orson Scott Card.It’s one of my
go-to books, and he offers much more concise guidelines.

Do you think that
this process is useful? Have you created characters before? What is your process,
and do you currently like it? Share any thoughts or questions in the comments.

Also, I wrote this
in a massive hurry, so if you find any major grammatical errors, it’s because I
didn’t proofread this. Your tolerance and forgiveness is appreciated.

Did you find today’s
post useful? Take a moment to share it on your favorite social network.

1 comment:

This is great! I do like those checklists (and Dungeons & Dragons-style character sheets are excellent), but this is a really good process. I am definitely the characters-first type when it comes to writing, but my character-making processes vary all the time.